19-year-old snatched outside his Williamsville home

WHILE most families spent yesterday preparing for Christmas,  a Williamsville family was in turmoil as they waited on word about  Rajiv Changoor,  a 19-year-old boy who was snatched by three gunmen in front of his home on Saturday night. Up to late yesterday,  police said no ransom demand was made for his release. Changoor, a student at the School of Business and Computer Science in Mt Hope, is the youngest son of supermarket proprietor, Ghandi Changoor, who operates his business downstairs his home at Eccles Village Main Road. According to a police report, about 9.10 pm, Changoor returned home after running an errand for his mother, Carol. The report stated that Changoor drove up in front of the grocery and honked the horn to alert his father that he had returned.

Changoor was then accosted by a man armed with a gun, who dragged him out of the vehicle. Another gunman, the report stated, stood guard in front of the glass door of the grocery. Changoor’s father came downstairs and was about to unlock the door for his son, when he saw the gunman outside the door. Ghandi ran back inside to call the police. The gunmen were then joined by a third man and they  forced a struggling Changoor into the back seat of a waiting silver/grey car. Officers of the Princes Town CID and Gasparillo Police Station issued an All Points Bulletin and set up several roadblocks in various locations which proved futile. When Newsday visited Changoor’s home yesterday, relatives said they were not satisfied with the police response.

“A helicopter should be hovering in the area and they should be searching the forests,” Changoor’s uncle, Krishna, said. He said the family had taken the normal precautionary measures but never thought that they would have been targetted by kidnappers. Saying that Changoor was asthmatic, Krishna appealed to the kidnappers not to hurt him. The family, he said, was visited by Tabaquite MP Adesh Nanan, and has been receiving outpouring support from friends and neighbours. Asked whether the supermarket will remain open, he said, “It is Christmas time. We cannot afford to close it, even in this difficult time.” Officers of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad are continuing investigations.